Your fundraising revenue doubles after a hurricane, then flatlines for months. That was World Central Kitchen’s reality.
Giving spiked with disasters and dropped between them, and the sustained revenue WCK needed for disaster preparedness wasn’t growing on its own.
In late 2025, the team launched Kitchen Corps, a branded monthly giving program.
They set an ambitious public goal and fell short. But the campaign they built turned out to matter more than the number it missed.
Building a “Kitchen Corps” of monthly donors
On a recent State of Recurring Giving webinar with Dana Snyder, WCK shared how the program came together.
The name gave monthly donors a defined role: chefs light the fires on the ground, and Kitchen Corps keeps them burning.
The campaign ran 10 emails across eight segments based on giving history and donor status, with urgency-driven messaging that framed monthly giving as fuel for crisis readiness.
New monthly donors received a $50 match, later extended to $100.
What 2,800 monthly donors unlocked
Ultimately, the 20,000-donor goal was too aggressive for a first launch, landing at 2,800 new monthly donors by the end.
Against that public goal, 2,800 looked like a miss until the team projected lifetime value: over $6 million across five years, based on roughly 8% annual churn.
That reframing changed the internal conversation with leadership. And those donors were just the start.
Prior to Kitchen Corps, WCK wasn’t engaging existing monthly donors in any dedicated way.
The campaign became the foundation for a full email-driven retention program: a three-part welcome series with a personalized video from founder José Andrés, a dedicated monthly giving hire, an exclusive Corps newsletter, and the internal buy-in for a spring follow-up campaign.
How to apply this to your program
Brand your monthly program. A named community gives donors a defined role and a sense of belonging.
IRC rebranded its giving tiers under “Rescue Collective” and saw retention increase across all levels.
Use lifetime value to make the case internally. A first monthly giving campaign probably won’t produce a jaw-dropping donor count.
Project what those donors are worth over three to five years and lead with that number when you report results to leadership.
Build retention into your launch plan. WCK built the welcome series, the Corps newsletter, and a retention strategy all on the back of that first campaign.
If you’re launching a monthly giving program this year, map out the post-signup experience before you send the first ask.
The bottom line
Most organizations wouldn’t share a campaign that hit 14% of its public goal.
WCK made the most of falling short, used what they learned to build a real program, and committed to a launch date that forced everything else into place.
Industry events
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Quick hits
Email deliverability expert Al Iverson makes the case for getting your email context box right on Spam Resource, arguing that vague “you’re receiving this because…” disclaimers that list every possible opt-in path signal lazy data management and do nothing to prevent spam complaints.
Matt Watkins argues in the Chronicle of Philanthropy that the word “injustice” has lost its punch in nonprofit communications, and that naming specific harms instead of defaulting to values language is what actually moves people to act.
Habitat for Humanity International is hiring a Vice President, Direct Marketing to lead a $90M+ multichannel direct response program spanning mail, digital, monthly giving, and mid-level donors. Hybrid in Atlanta or DC, $191K–$239K.
‘Til next time!
Sara